Seattle Information Technology

Yesterday, the Seattle Trails Alliance released a new app for iOS called Seattle Trails. The app, which got its start at the AT&T Mobile Parks & Rec Hackathon back in March, shows precise locations of trails in Seattle Parks as well as what kind of trail they are–gravel, bridge, paved, trail–and allows users to give feedback directly in the app. The app was developed by volunteers led by Eric Mentele, Theodore Abshire, and David Wolgemuth, with support from Seattle Parks Trails Manager Chukundi Salisbury. Thanks to volunteer Craig Morrison, an Android version is also in development. Ironically, on my way to the event yesterday, I followed Google Maps rather than the Seattle Trails app and found myself at a private “trailhead” I would have had to spend hours bushwhacking to get up to the real trailhead for the St. Mark’s Greenbelt. Next time, I’ll use the app! You can download it here.

Rebekah Bastian, VP of Product at Zillow, wrote an op-ed in the Huffington Post, “How Tech Communities Can Create Social Change.” She shares the steps she took to learn about homelessness before designing a solution and then highlights the Community Pillar program that emerged, through which 20,000 landlords and property managers have signed up to rent to people who might not otherwise find housing in the Seattle market. “We in the tech community have a unique opportunity to use our skills, resources and passion to create change,” she writes. “And with that opportunity comes responsibility – responsibility to better the communities that are supporting our growth.”

Last weekend, at Zoohackathon at the Woodland Park Zoo, hackers took on various challenges related to wildlife trafficking, including product identification, fundraising for conservation organizations, gaming to raise public awareness of the issue, and, for the winning app, using crowdsourced data to identify the reasons for loss of orangutan habitat. As part of the event, hackers got to meet several of the Zoo’s “animal ambassadors,” experience a night tour, and attend Brew at the Zoo. This was the first global Zoohackathon, with six cities around the world participating. Check out the pre-event story on NPR and summaries in GeekWire and the Zoo’s blog.

MojePanstwo.pl (“My Country” in Polish) is a unique kind of open data portal that makes data – from public tenders to laws to survey results – incredibly easy to access. Some functionality is available in English. You can read more about it, and the new public procurement application they recently launched, here.

The Center for Open Data Enterprise published a new report based on a series of roundtables organized by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy earlier this year. The report addresses key issues in open data, including privacy, data quality, sharing research data, and public-private collaboration. Read the full report or check out this summary in the Huffington Post.

This is a must-listen rather than a must-read. In “Blame Game,” episode 8 of the Revisionist History podcast, Malcolm Gladwell breaks down the Toyota “sudden acceleration” scandal that resulted in the recall of 10 million vehicles due to mistrust of the cars’ technology. Spoiler alert: The technology was not to blame. The story has insights for consumers as well as policymakers struggling to understand how technology works and how to ensure it serves the public interest.

David Doyle has been hired as the Open Data Program Manager for the City of Seattle. David will work alongside the current manager, Bruce Blood, who will be retiring in January. He will primarily focus on continuing the implementation of the Open Data policy signed by Mayor Ed Murray on February 1, 2016. This work involves coordinating efforts across all city departments to accelerate the publishing of high value datasets into http://data.seattle.gov. He’ll also partner closely with the City’s Community Technology Advocate, Candace Faber, on initiatives that strengthen Open Data’s role as a key pillar in the City’s Civic Engagement strategy, as well as participating in various efforts to represent and promote the City of Seattle as a leading Smart City in the US.

Prior to joining the City of Seattle, David worked at Microsoft for over 18 years within the Windows localization and internationalization teams. Most recently he ran a Data Insights team that focused on Windows 10 worldwide customer data, analyzing data from hundreds of millions of customers to provide insights into customer usage patterns outside of the US and ensuring that key customer feedback from those markets was prioritized and addressed. Prior to that role, he managed test teams that focused on assuring the localization quality of several major releases of the Windows operating system in over 100 languages, culminating with the Windows 10 initial release in July 2015.

David’s passion for Open Data resulted in him completing a policy analysis of the impacts of an Open Data Law for Washington State for his Capstone research project when earning a Master of Arts in Policy Studies from University of Washington-Bothell, in 2015. He is an active member of the eGov Committee, a sub-committee of Seattle’s Community Technology Advisory Board (CTAB), which advises and supports the City on technology initiatives. David also holds an Master of Science in Technology Management from University College Dublin, Ireland, and a Bachelor of Science in Applied Sciences (Computer Science & Physics) from the Dublin Institute of Technology, Ireland.

Seattle IT staff and members of the community stand behind Mayor Ed Murray as he signs an Executive Order in support of the City’s new open data policy on February 26, 2016. Photo courtesy of Colin Wood.

Want to know how Seattle’s open data program is managed? Curious how we get from policy to action? Check out our newly published open data playbook here, also linked to from seattle.gov/opendata.

The playbook is a guide for City staff on how to implement the open data policy and executive order that were issued in February 2016. We are making it available to the general public as well, based on demand for this information from other cities as well as from members of the community.

This document is in Portable Document Format, but please consider the content open-source: You may use or reuse any language or images you find helpful, with the exception of the City’s official logo. We plan to update the document as needed based on feedback from users inside the City as well as any changes we make to the program’s management over time.

If you have feedback for the open data team on this playbook or any other questions about the program, you can reach us at open.data@seattle.gov.